non-scholar....Why am I not surprised that you have not acknowledged the fact that you lied about Jenni. You said that Jenni did not cite the scripture as I had claimed, and you also declared that he had in fact provided no evidence on its use. How could you have made these claims if you had not seen the book and if -- as you now say -- you are unable to understand the German wording.
The quotation cited does indeed mention according to the German 'for Babylon' but no transaltion of the German for the rubric heading is provided so I am unsure as to the context for Jenni's citation as I do not read German.
I did explain in my brief overview that Jenni "examines the construction in terms of the secondary preposition lpy 'according to' which introduces the reference to the 'seventy years for Babylon' ". The Rubrik heading 919 "Sekundärpräposition lpy 'entsprechend' " translates roughly as "Secondary preposition lpy 'according to' " in English. That is, this Rubrik lists examples of quantitative relations (cf. Rubrik 91, "Quantitative Relationem"), such as those concerning time, involving the secondary preposition lpy. Jenni's translation of the verse into German ("erst wenn 70 Jahre für Babel um sind") does not support the NWT, as you seem to acknowledge.
What needs to be shown is where Jenni actually discusses le as to its meaning as 'at' similar to the way Gesenius does in his Lexicon.
He does that in Rubrik 8, "Lamed adverbiale". This is an entirely different category than the one in which he places the le of Jeremiah 29:10 ("Lamed Experientiae, Rubrik 3). Jenni understands that the preposition in 29:10 must be interpreted in light of its governing verb ml' "to fulfill" (e.g. fulfilling a DURATION), so that the entity marked by the preposition has some relationship with the quantified entity. Thus it falls into the same pattern as the following, as cited on p. 109:
Proverbs 4:10: "Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of your life will be many". [Jenni gives the formula rbh "viel sein (Jahre)"; these are YEARS pertaining to ONE'S LIFE]
Genesis 26:8: "And it came to pass, when his days had been prolonged, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked through the window". [Jenni gives the formula 'rd "lang sein (Tage)"; this is a prolonging of DAYS pertaining to HIM]
Genesis 50:3: "And forty days were fulfilled for him; for this is how they fulfilled the days for those being embalmed". [Jenni gives the formula ml' "voll werden (Tage/Jahr[e])"; this is a fulfilling of 40 DAYS pertaining to HIM/THOSE EMBALMED]
Leviticus 25:30: "And if it is not redeemed until an entire year is fulfilled for it, the house in the walled city shall belong permanently to the buyer". [Jenni gives the same formula as above; this is a fulfilling of an ENTIRE YEAR pertaining to THE HOUSE]
Jeremiah 29:10: "When seventy years are fulfilled for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place". [Jenni gives the same formula as above; this is a fulfilling of SEVENTY YEARS pertaining to BABYLON]
Thus Jenni provides evidence by citing analogous examples. The local uses of le considered in Rubrik 8, "Lamed adverbiale" are different because they are "Adverbs of Orientation" (Rubrik 81, "Adverbien der Orientierung"), which indicate a spatial relationship between an entity and the environment. Not all are static locatives, many (if not most) of these are directional (e.g. Rubrik 8115 "to the city" in 1 Samuel 8:22, Ezra 2:1), others express orientation along a horizontal axis or vertical axis. Examples of locative le:
"Sin is crouching at your door (l-ptch)" (Genesis 4:17; Rubrik 815 "Orientierung an Einrichtungen", orientation to man-made objects)
"Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance of his tent" (Numbers 11:10; Rubrik 815)
"She sits at the door of her house" (Proverbs 9:14; Rubrik 815)
"Zebulon will live by the seashore" (Genesis 49:13; Rubrik 816 "Orientierung in Natur / Kosmos", orientation to nature / cosmos)
There are also temporal adverbs specifying a location in time (cf. Rubrik 87, "Relative Adverbien der Zeit", Rubrik 88, "Zeitbestimmungen mit begrenztem Intervall", Rubrik 89, "Tageszeiten", etc.). In all these cases, the adverb indicates the orientation of an entity or event to the spatial or temporal environment. In the examples above, the entity being located into the environment through le is marked in red bold underline.
From what I'm able to observe, the construction in Jeremiah 29:10 is different. If l-bbl is to be interpreted as a locative, then what is the entity that is being situated spatially in Babylon? The only entity (which is also the subject of the clausal verb) stated in the clause is the "seventy years". Treating Jeremiah 29:10 as belonging to the categories in Rubrik 81 would posit the seventy years as a "thing" that is located at Babylon (rather than the exiles being located at Babylon); this is quite unnatural, since the semantic relationship between an abstract TIME UNIT and a city or kingdom is more naturally relational (e.g. 70 years pertaining to Babylon) or possessive (e.g. 70 years belonging to Babylon), than being the spatial location of a TIME UNIT. Otherwise, it would have to be the event itself (the completion of the 70 years) that is located "at Babylon", i.e. the 70 years, wherever they may have started, will end at Babylon; this reading similarly fails to presuppose a 70-year exile in Babylon, and would constitute a lone exception to an otherwise recognizable syntactic pattern (e.g. ml' + (TIME UNIT) + le phrase). In contrast, we have already seen a well-attested construction in which the verb FULFILL takes a TIME UNIT as its theme/patient and a le-phrase denoting the entity for whom the time unit concerns. Jeremiah 29:10 fits perfectly into that pattern.
Of course, this is my own interpretation of the linguistic facts evident from Jenni's analysis. I don't know enough German to attempt an actual translation of his analysis (I'm sure there are others here who can), but he makes it very clear that he does not regard Jeremiah 29:10 as an example of "Lamed adverbiale". Moreover, the vast majority of cases of the preposition are directional or dative, relational ("pertaining to," "with respect to", etc.), or quasi-possessive ("belonging to"); the non-directional local use is exceptional. Instead, locatives are usually expressed with a different preposition: be "in".
I remain highly suspect as to how apostaters are using Jenni's scholarship.
Here is another ridiculous statement. If Jenni -- the foremost expert on Hebrew prepositions -- supports the rendering "for Babylon", why the hell not cite his scholarship??
The other concern is why it was then necessary for a letter to be sent to Jenni in regard to this matter if in fact Jenni discusses this mattter. I f a person consults his reference material then there would be no need to inquire further or seek necessary clarification.
LMAO!! First of all, academics and scholars contact each other all the time to clarify matters (haven't you seen p.c. in a publication??) .... Second, as I already said before, Jonsson is not a linguist or expert in Hebrew grammar. He has every right as a researcher to contact those who are for their professional opinions about a very specific matter. The fact of the matter is that aside from Jenni, hardly any reference works discuss Jeremiah 29:10 specifically. I myself checked about 10 Hebrew grammars and lexicons earlier in the week and could not find a citation of this verse with respect to the preposition le. They do, of course, indicate that le is primarily dative (= "to, for") and indicates usually direction, relationship, and possession. They would give ample support to the "for Babylon" rendering in the text in question. However, only Jenni's book made reference to the specific case of Jeremiah 29:10. Third, Jenni's own book is pretty hard to find and was published relatively recently.
And is Jenni's expect opinion (as clearly expressed in his message to Jonsson) invalid? On what grounds do you dismiss it?
The individual who wrote is not identified and referred to Jehovah's Witnesses which must have attracted a biased reply from Jenni.
Is this supposed to be some sort of response to my question concerning why you described Jenni's response as "biased against JWs"? You have not shown at all that Jenni is biased against JWs, and I'm not even clear on what you're trying to say in this sentence. You seem to be insinuating that because JWs were mentioned to him, Jenni must be biased and thus his expect opinions can't be trusted. That would be a desperate case of special pleading. Never mind that his response is perfectly consistent with what he already said in his book.
Jonsson and his linguistic expert have made much of this single piece of information which raises too many questions. Jonsson has not shown the original letter containing the question and Jenni's reply is not given in full, this is not scholarship.
Give me a break. You're latching onto anything you can use to cast aspersions against the clear testimony of Professor Jenni. If his conclusion were in support of the NWT, you would be trumpeting it from the mountaintops as conclusive evidence, if not proof, for the NWT's rendering. But because he believes that l-bbl does not mean "at Babylon" in Jeremiah 29:10, you're trying to do whatever you can to dismiss it. His statement to Jonsson is suspect because Jonsson had no need to write him directly, he could've just used his book. His statement to Jonsson is suspect because he knew it was an important verse to JWs, so obviously that biased him to say something negative about the NWT rendering. His statement to Jonsson is suspect because Jonsson does not show us his original inquiry letter, and who knows what it said that could have influenced Jenni into saying something questionable! On and on. In all of this, you never deal with what Jenni actually says in his letter, nor do you admit that his letter is perfectly consistent with what he says in his book -- he even gives Jonsson a page reference for him to look it up himself.
I have seen many instances of personal communication quoted in scholarly publications, not very often does one see the text of the original inquiry presented as well.
Jonsson has parading the transaltion of Jeremiah 29:10 for some twenty years
So Jonsson should not be discussing this verse in his work? Should he leave it out then? Would that be better scholarship? You always put a negative slant on things, no matter what. The translation of l-bbl as "for Babylon" or as a possessive (e.g. "Babylon's seventy years") is found in the vast majority of translations. The main exceptions are the NWT and the old KJV (which was obviously influenced by the Vulgate). The translation that Jonsson has been "parading" is the usual one.
and has failed to provide sufficient evidence to show that the NWT was incorrect in this instance, it seems that Jonsson has now to rely upon a recent scholarly opinion to prove his point.
The evidence shows the rendering is very unlikely and very few translations side with the NWT. The rendering in most translations is perfectly in line with the usual senses of the preposition as almost any Hebrew grammar could attest. But very few if any of these discuss the text in question specifically. Jenni does tho, and his expertise on Hebrew prepositions exceeds that of almost anyone else (considering his exhaustive work on the subject). The NWT translation capitalizes on a rather rare sense of the preposition which is grammatically incongruous with the wording of Jeremiah 29:10. As Jenni noted to Jonsson, the local sense occurs "only in certain adverbial expressions".
What then was the status of his evidence over the last twenty years.
All along there were many grammars and lexicons that showed that the usual rendering of "for Babylon" (NIV, NASB, JB, RS, etc.) was consistent with the major senses of le. There are works such as Joüon's Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Vol. 2, pp. 473-477), which discuss how le supplants the genitive, such as in cases with TIME UNITS, e.g. "Cyrus' first year" = "the first year belonging to Cyrus" (b-shnt 'cht l-kwrsh) in Ezra 1:1 (compare "seventy years belonging to Babylon" in Jeremiah 29:10).
I see nothing that alters my opinion that the NWT is correct in rendering the Hebrew preposition 'le' as 'at' in Jeremiah 29:10 because the context demands it and Hebrew scholarship permits it.
Hebrew scholarship does NOT permit it, unless you disregard Jenni's work. The context does NOT demand it, for the syntactic construction evident in the verse (as discussed by Narkissos and Jenni) is not recognized in the NWT rendering and the wider discursive context does not require the l-bbl in v. 29 to be local.
